


An Abundance of Swear Words

by Wearysea



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: And he's super worried about everyone, Author Is Sleep Deprived, But no one's okay right then and he's going to make up for it, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Post-Episode: Dealing with INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS, Remus has Intrusive Thoughts, Roman's pretty testy in the first part, So yeah, Sympathetic Anxiety | Virgil Sanders, Sympathetic Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Sympathetic Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Sympathetic Logic | Logan Sanders, Sympathetic Morality | Patton Sanders, Sympathetic Sides (Sanders Sides), he's def sympathetic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-20
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22817857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wearysea/pseuds/Wearysea
Summary: There's only so many lies Deceit can keep up with, the other sides have a mountains worth filling up their heads, so when Deceit gets too overwhelmed and the others are suddenly left without them, it's going to take a lot of Remus-brand damage control to set it right.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil/Creativity | Roman/Logic | Logan/Morality | Patton/Deceit Sanders, Anxiety | Virgil/Dark Creativity | Remus/Logic | Logan/Morality | Patton/Deceit Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders
Comments: 40
Kudos: 137





	An Abundance of Swear Words

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Remus-brand intrusive thoughts, that means casual descriptions of injuries and gore.  
> (I will be putting specific TW's in the notes at the top of every chapter so pay attention and take care of yourselves.)

The mirror is cracked.

The mirror has always been cracked.

In the upper left corner there are three jagged lines, and in the lower right corner, extending in a slight ark right up through to the middle, was the largest one. Completely unavoidable. Completely broken. Completely ugly.

… It didn’t seem so ugly earlier.

The cracked mirror bothers Remus.

 _Remus_ isn’t sure why it bothers Remus. It didn’t yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that, but right here, right now, standing in front of the imperfect image, it bothers him. Very. Very. Much. It makes him want to break a shard out of the cracks and match the pattern in scratches anywhere and everywhere across his skin. To watch the blood drip down all slow and mesmerising-like.

He comes back to reality to find his hand placed against the weakest part of the cracks, he pulls it back like he’d been burned and looks at the damage. Small cuts line the tippy tops of his fingers and for once the pain isn’t funny to him, when he looks at the blood, he just feels sad.

Ah, now he understands.

It bothers him because it reflects him.

Remus is cracked.

His skin and bones have given way under the pressure of his own mental state and he has started to _crack_. Remus isn’t sure if it shows. He isn’t sure if he wants it to show… his grin is harder to put on today. It feels like it’s made of glass.

Glass that has started to crack. Like the mirror.

Remus wonders if he smashed his face in, would it be blood and gore and broken bone, or would it be hard fractured Remus shaped bits? Like a jigsaw puzzle that could never be put back together again.

Now that was a thought.

Remus takes a second to mentally dissect himself (he doesn’t feel like doing it physically right now) to try and figure out whether he wants to break himself or if he thinks he’s already broken; to stop himself from breaking or for someone to be able to put him back together once he does?

Does he want to be, or to avoid becoming, a human Humpty Dumpty?

Would anyone ever try to help him once he breaks, cracks, snaps in half like this _stupid_ **_fucking_ ** _mirror?_ All these questions and no answers in sight.

Remus decides he doesn’t like looking at himself.

Remus decides he doesn’t like _being himself_.

But what can he do? He is what he is. He is the Dark Side of Creativity. He is the Duke. He is the embodiment of intrusive thoughts. He did not choose to be any of these things and yet he is. He didn’t want to be bad, _and yet he is._

He’s disgusting and awful and evil and _bad._

Why does that make him want to cry all of a sudden?

He was used to taking utter unapologetic delight in what he was. What gave way in his head that’s making it so hard to do that now? Remus’ mind looks back at his and Roman’s split and he wonders if he felt this way, even then, did he push these feelings down and smother them to make himself feel better? Why was this all bubbling to the surface now? Why not earlier, why not later? Why is the denial suddenly lifting-…

Deceit.

Remus needed to see Deceit.

Immediately.

It didn’t take long to find him in his tucked away office, deep in the endless corridors of the Misinformation Archives, where Deceit does the majority of his work as Thomas’ Self-Preservation and Lie Facilitator. The only question here was, why wasn’t Deceit working now?

Remus didn’t need to ask that verbally to get the answer, the office being filled to the brim with documents that needed categorising and filing in the correct compartments for daily use. Deceit was clearly overwhelmed by the amount of work he had cut out for him.

What swear word could Remus use here to emphasise how bad this was? He’ll come up with one later. 

This made him think about paper cuts. Did Dee get paper cuts often? Would Dee have a lot of papercuts now? Had the paper cuts drained all of his blood and left him as a sack of skin and bone for Remus to discover?

Remus found Deceit at his desk, slouched over it with his face resting in his arms. Remus had to go digging around in paperwork to uncover him and now that he has, Remus carefully removes the bowler hat so he can run his fingers through Dee’s messy hair.

Deceit’s only reaction is to let out a shaky sigh, Remus doesn’t even need to look at Dee’s face to see that he’s been crying and it breaks his heart when Dee sits up and he can see the damp cheeks and puffy eyes.

“Deedee?”

“… You all lie to yourselves. So damn much.” Deceit’s voice is as cracked as the mirror; as cracked as Remus feels. It seems that Remus is the only one whose figured out that Deceit kind of fucked up today.

There was no doubt in Remus’ very crowded mind that this has affected Thomas as a whole, the other sides must’ve noticed something was up, must’ve felt the consequences of Deceit’s lack of actions. Although, it’s pretty clear to Remus that there isn’t really much Deceit could do here to avoid this, everything’s piled up so much it just doesn’t look possible for Deceit to tackle this on his own.

So he won’t.

Remus, with one arm wrapped around Deceit’s shoulders, picks up one of the files. It’s labelled Functionality of Logic and has **IMPORTANT** stamped in bright red capital letters underneath. This one caught his eye because it had a sticky note on it that read ‘Negatively Affects Thomas’ Mental Health’, oooh, that’s bad.

“That one won’t run out today, it’s isn’t important at all for Logan’s continued well-being and I don’t need to file it immediately.”

“You’re actually right about one of those things, you don’t have to file it. I do.”

Deceit snaps to look at Remus in confusion. Letting him anywhere near this is likely a very, very bad idea, simply due to his rather chaotic nature.

That being said, the office was already in chaos, what could it hurt for him to try? 

“Remus…” Deceit’s lips wobble at the offer, likely to start crying again.

“I’ll help you make a dent in this, until you feel better enough to take a crack at it yourself, then we’ll work it back down to a _manageable load_ together,” Remus’ gaze, completely devoid of humour to the point that it actually started to creep Deceit out, “because this is not a fun way to get fucked.”

“Yes, it is,” he smiles at the innuendo, even an out of sorts Remus is still Remus, “and no thank you, we shouldn’t start by getting yours sorted out first.”

“Nah, I can handle being a little more screwed up than usual for a little while, let’s stop the rest of the system from breaking before we get to fixing what’s already broken.”

“If you aren’t sure, I will complain about the offer.”

As much as Remus wanted to feel better too, keeping the others from coming down here and making Dee feel worse took priority. They’d probably all think he was doing it on purpose and yell at him. To prevent that from happening, he needs to sort out the others probably fucked up psyches before this gets too noticeable. So, the other side’s files first. He could deal with feeling like this for Dee’s sake.

He could do anything for Dee’s sake.

… Even _organisation._

Remus parked his butt on Dee’s desk, continuing to run his fingers through Deceit’s hair and cracked open the file. He’d probably need to read this, right?

_… Logic is impartial and unbiased…_

_… Emotions are non-existent within Logic, if they aren’t then Logic is flawed…_

_… Logic needs correcting if it begins to exhibit emotion as it is behaving irrationally, Logic must be rational at all times…_

_… In order to properly carry out its duties, Logic must be respected and viewed as serious, responsible and adult…_

Oh, fudgesickles on a dick, ~~he means stick.~~

So these are _lies_ Logan tells himself in order to keep functioning… or is it about his function as a side of Thomas? Remus isn’t sure, but if this isn’t filed in time, something similar to what happened to him this morning would likely happen to Logan soon.

Remus wonders if Logan’s self-worth is dependent on believing this stuff? Man, that’s got to be a trip down a canyon and a half. That’s like gaslighting _yourself_.

Remus also wonders why Logan thinks of himself as ‘it’, but that’s a train of thought (with an extraordinarily high death toll after the crash) for another day.

Hmm, okay, he’s got a gist of what this file _is,_ now he just needs to do with this thing… Jesus’ toe cheese, these are gigantic piles, he’s going to need to sort them and get the rest of the room visible before he can file this, doesn’t he?

Shit.

They’re both going to be here for a while.

Deceit’s breath hitches and Remus can tell he’s trying to hold back a sob, burying his face in the crook of Remus’ neck, while he wonders if his neck has ever tried to steal something. Almost absentmindedly, Remus lowers his hand to Deceit’s back and begins to rub in soothing circles.

“It’s going to be okay, Deedee, it’s all going to be okay.”

It occurs to Remus that it might be a good idea for Deceit to get some rest for a while, so he summons bunch of pillows and a blanket from the depths of comfort-hell (what he calls the pillowfort/bed he has in his room) and shifts Deceit so he’s curled up on top of the desk, now a makeshift bed. Remus makes no effort to stifle his giggle at the muffled “thanksssss” he receives. At least Deceit doesn’t have to look at all these files now.

Okay, so, organising.

_Organising._

**Organising.**

ORGANISING.

Organising.

… Some files have important written on the covers. That means that they should be a… what’s the word… penalty? Purgatory? Penis? No, no, no… PRIORITY! THAT’S THE BITCH.

So that means he needs to get those all done first, ‘cause they’re important, and all the others can wait ‘til later, right? He hopes that’s right. 

Remus starts by clearing a small circle on the floor near the desk, and places the folder for Logan down, he picks up as many “important” folders as he can see, one by one, and he places each in a pile specific to the side each one effects. Then he goes about sifting through the rest to find the ones he couldn’t see. It takes a little while, but eventually he ends up with 6 neat if large piles ready to work through.

That’s probably the hardest part, Remus has great difficulty with ‘neat’ in the clean sense, it’s just not his style, but if it works faster here then he won’t fuck around any longer than absolutely necessary.

Remus wants to change, anyway.

… shit, does he? That’s new. A thing to ignore for the moment, he thinks. He knows it has to come back around later, he’s intrusive thoughts, but he just doesn’t have the _time_ to talk through it now.

To the next item on the agenda, getting all the other shit out of the way so he can start _filing._ What can he do to get everything out of the way? … he could put it in the imagination. And then pop over every now and then to pick some up and bring it back. That could work.

That _would_ work!

Okay!

Remus has a game plan now, and with a snap of his fingers, the room is cleared except for the piles he’d set out earlier.

Cool.

Remus expected there to be filing cabinets, but it was really more like library bookshelves lining the walls from the floor to the ceiling, yellow labels with Deceit’s distinctive, classy cursive handwriting detailed what should be put in each section.

Now he just needed to figure out which file needed to go where. Hoping that wasn’t easier said than done, he picked up the Functionality of Logic folder and walked to the closest shelf and started reading the labels.

… He doesn’t get it.

Remus doesn’t get it! He wants to help! He _needs_ to help! But he doesn’t get it! His brain is stupid! He smacks the side of his head, hard, once. Twice. Three times.

“Bye, bye…”

Then Deceit is standing next to him, firmly holding his wrist so he can’t continue. Even when he’s struggling Deceit still has to look after Remus. His face aches and his fingers itch in Deceit’s grip.

Knowing not to let go just yet, Deceit stays firm in their position and continues talking like nothing happened.

“Which one are you trying to place, Dukey?”

“The Logan one I picked up before, the function one.”

“Not alright, let’s see…”

He likely knew exactly where it went without having to think about it, but Deceit was magnificent when it came to making Remus feel like he wasn’t dumb. Remus appreciated that… at least, now that he notices it. He’d never consciously admitted to himself that he felt that way before… Deceit does a lot for him, he wants to do a lot for Deceit in return, now he knows.

Deceit’s fingers trail the bookshelf delicately, something about the action makes Remus want to kiss his face off, eventually he pauses at the shelf labelled: _Prevention of Mental Deterioration._

“This one,” Deceit begins rather decisively, “isn’t where Logan’s Functionality lies should go.”

“Why is it under that one?”

“Because it wouldn’t severely harm Logan’s mental state if he were suddenly without these lies instead of being able to work through them at his own pace. This wouldn’t also severely impact Thomas and his way of thinking. Just a great time all ‘round.”

Remus lights up, “I get it! That makes sense! Good that we did the thing!”

Deceit smiles as he says, “No.”

Maybe Remus isn’t so stupid after all, it was a system he was unused to, after all. He’d get used to it. Before the next one got looked at, however, “You wanna go lay back down, Deedee?”

A sheepish nod is all it took to get Remus to pick Deceit up and carry him across the room to the sleep-desk. Remus can’t remember the last time he heard that excited giggle, he’d missed it.

… He finds he really likes how Deceit looks when he’s all comfy and happy.

Back to the filing!

Which one should he go for next… there were a few others with sticky notes on them, he should check those out. With a snap of his fingers, they were in a pile by his feet, he grabs the one at the very top of the pile and frowns.

“Does this go on the same shelf as Logan’s folder?”

“Which one is it?”

“It’s one of Patton’s, it says ‘Emotional Processing’”

“It doesn’t depend on what’s in it, don’t read some out, will you?”

“Okay:

_‘I’m Morality, I am the centre of a lot of Thomas’ feelings, I should not need any help carrying out my function,_

_‘I should not need any help dealing with emotions.’_

_‘I’m bothering everyone around me when I talk about my negative emotions’_

_‘… I’m beginning to bother everyone when I talk about my positive ones too-’”_

Deceit moves quickly, sitting straight up in alarm, “That-that is not bad, not bad at all.”

“Yeah, Patton seems like he’s having a bad time.”

“I love my job sometimes,” burying his face in his hands, “I definitely want to make him believe that about himself.”

“You can’t help?”

“From here, definitely. I wouldn’t need to talk it through with him and make him realise that isn’t the truth on his own, there wouldn’t be any unforeseen effects on him if I didn’t.”

“’Cause all these lies are there for a reason, right?”

“No, they aren’t lies created by the other sides, I have full control over them.”

“Okay, we can do something about that later, make a plan?”

“You and the planning all of a sudden!”

“… I know, right? It’s weird.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I don’t know how to feel about it, Dee.”

“… I know.”

Remus tries to put his smile back on, but it seems like the more he tries the less it works. He settles for ‘a little bit better than a grimace’ and tries to divert the conversation back to their task, carefully not looking back at Deceit.

“So, where does it go?”

“On the Detrimental To Sides shelf.”

It only takes a minute to find it, Remus’ stomach drops to the floor with a splat when he realises that there are at least 5 shelves labelled this in anticipation of a high number of files… that’s a lot of heartache. You good, Thomas?

… Remus knows he can’t be.

Are lies the thread sanity hangs on?

Maybe.

All he can think about is how stressful that must be for Deceit.

Remus doesn’t mention it. They carry on and he doesn’t talk about how much it must kill Deceit to read all of Virgil’s self-deprecating thoughts and not being able to do anything about it. He doesn’t talk about anything he thinks, he spends a while internally processing that information. It doesn’t feel like he’s a keg about to explode with a bang and a puddle of guts, it’s just… tight. His throat feels tight and his hands shake with the thoughts and it’s then Remus realises that his thoughts are hurting him. His head is clear enough to process the pain instead of getting overwhelmed and oh, God, it hurts. Instead of being able to open his mouth and let the hurt out like a waterfall it’s like he has to push it out the gate gradually and that is so. Much. Harder.

He’ll deal with it later.

When Remus turns around, halfway through the pile to see Deceit crying again, hand clamped over his mouth as if to stop a scream.

Remus drops the file on the floor and it takes a hot minute to get poor Dee’s hand away from his face.

“They’re trying to summon me.”

Cataclysmic fuck.

“I’ll handle it.”

It’s impulsive, impulsive, _impulsive,_ but the relief on Deceit’s face as he sinks down helps sooth the panic he feels at the 5 confused faces staring at him from different places in Thomas’ living room.

“What are you doing here!?! We called for Cosmo Shelsnake!”

Fuck, he really should’ve thought this through.

“Deceit can’t deal with your bullshit right now! … I mean, I’m the most honest side around!” Please don’t question it, “I’m the other half of the same coin, if you get my drift.”

Remus violently hopes that someone else fills in the blanks before he freaks out.

“The same subjects cause you to appear because you deal in the same concepts despite having different methods and specialities?”

“Yes!” _Thanks for doing my bullshitting for me, Logan!_

“Okay,” Thomas begins again, “but why are you here instead of Deceit this time?”

_Shit. More bullshitting for me after all._

“Deceit’s busy, y’know?” Wait, that gives Remus an idea, “Like when Virgil _needs_ to be in his own domain to sort out certain stuff like nightmare management.”

Virgil’s brows furrow, he looks even moodier than usual, “… That makes a surprising amount of sense, for you.”

Remus ignores the comment in favour of:

“… that doesn’t sound good.”

“Oh, relax, it’s routine stuff, scripts for social situations, ‘Are you okay, Thomas? I’m good, random example person!” stuff like that, it just takes a lot of paperwork.” The thing about the ‘Most Honest Side Around’ line was that it was actually pretty accurate. Remus had quite a bit of trouble actually _lying._ That was Deceit’s job.

He could frame the truth to be misleading, because he was also a confusing little shit, even if he was giving far more of an explanation than he usually would right now. He’d have to keep an eye on that to avoid giving too much away. Maybe he could pluck one out and give it the job? He could give it a little tie and little glasses!

“Now that we’ve gone over that, why _were_ you trying to summon Deceit? I can’t imagine what kind of issue would have you inviting either of us over willingly? I’m all ears.”

No one speaks and it occurs to him that they were probably waiting for him to do something with his ears. Not today, he’s tired and he’s got an excuse for being out of character right now.

“Well?”

He knows he’s right as he sees surprise flitting across 5 faces for a moment, only to disappear when the conversation continues.

Logan takes the lead on this one, he’s the light side that deals with him the most when he shows up, so that makes sense to Remus. Most things are making sense to Remus. It’s kind of gross.

“We all seem to be having,” Logan sounds shake-y, like someone’s played cat’s cradle with his vocal cords, “technical issues, that all began at similar times this morning. We wanted to ask him some questions.”

Remus’ frowns like he doesn’t already know what he means, “Technical issues?”

Logan seems hesitant to share, so do all the other sides, so Thomas takes over for him.

“They all kind off… broke down? Couldn’t function for a while, we started to feel better a little while ago but everyone still isn’t… doing great.”

“I… I think I’d need to know specifics to help you troubleshoot this.”

“We need to see what a wily serpent’s gotten up to-” Virgil shushes Roman rather effectively with a colouring book. It never fails.

“We all,” Patton croaks, he sounds like he’s going to cry, “started thinking stuff about ourselves. Bad stuff.”

Oh.

Remus knew how bad it was for him, what he’d done to himself before he snapped himself out of the thoughts and went to Dee. He had no clue what had happened to the others this morning, but he could guess, looking at Patton, who was wearing his sweater instead of having it wrapped around his shoulders, and looking at Logan, who was wearing a long-sleeved shirt instead of his usual polo.

“That sounds… tricky. Seems like y’all have some _emotional baggage_ you need to talk through.”

“Ugh, he uses y’all.”

“Damn right, Virgil,” Remus then goes back to addressing the group, “I wouldn’t know the _intricacies_ of what Deceit does, but what I do know is that while he _can_ prevent someone from giving information to Thomas in certain situations, he _can’t_ control what any other side thinks and feels, that’s all you. If he could, do you think he would’ve bothered with the courtroom? Do you think he would’ve _lost_? None of you really saw things his way even when he got Thomas declared guilty.”

“That’s… true.” There’s something desperately sad in Patton’s eyes. Remus has an incredibly bad feeling about it, like something he ate had parasites in it and they were eating the lining of his stomach. He almost expects to start coughing up blood… and for once, he really, really doesn’t want to.

It scares him.

He doesn’t want it to scare him.

… He kinda wants to give Patton a hug.

“I _am_ serious about talking all of this stuff through though, it could be… What’s the word? Therapy but it kind of sounds like Jurassic?”

“Therapeutic?”

“Yeah! That!”

“… Noted, Remus.” Which surprises Remus more than anything else. Logan’s actually listened to what he’s said? Taking an idea seriously? … This felt good.

But he couldn’t dwell on that.

“Okay,” No one’s talking now, Remus isn’t sure what to do or where else to go with this unless he makes another joke or messes with them and he doesn’t want to do either of these things, “Do you guys want me to go so y’all can get started on that or?”

“No.”

Surprisingly it’s Roman, who usually doesn’t stop him when he leaves. He sounds… angry. 

Remus suppresses the flinch. 

He knows very well that when Roman gets very upset, especially the directed at Roman himself upset, he lashes out at everyone else. It’s not his fault he reacts that way, at least, he’s not _bad_ for reacting that way, but Remus knows he’s going to be on the offensive here and that Roman will likely have to give a hell of an apology for what he’s about to do later. Everyone’s hurt and SOMETHING caused it and if someone did something that upset Deceit he’d be exactly the same.

He knew and accepted all of this.

That didn’t change that panicked, squelchy feeling in his lungs when his usually eye-rolling brother seemed genuinely furious with him.

“There’s something you aren’t telling us.” Roman’s gritting his teeth like he’s trying to stop himself from shouting and oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck- “You wouldn’t be acting so strange if I was wrong.” 

“Well, _of course_ I’m not telling you _everything!_ That would take months! Years! I’d lose my train of thought!”

_“REMUS CUT THE SHI-”_

“I could tell you the exact amount of time it would take for maggots to pupate inside a corpse! I could tell you how many months it takes for someone with anxiety to get through the waiting list for therapy on the NHS in Britain! I could tell you every nasty thing that flies through my head! It would definitely make me feel less like a pressure cooker!” Remus pauses, panting, desperately trying to catch his breath before it flies away on an airplane with the kids and all their savings, “But I don’t, because none of you want, or need, to know what I’m not telling you.”

Roman’s frowning like Remus has done something concerning and that forces Remus’ stomach contents right up into his oesophagus, he’s almost grateful when Roman switches back to anger. Roman and Remus can no longer hear or see Thomas, or the other sides, anymore.

They’re solely focused on each other. 

Are you ready to rumble? 

“... You’re covering for Deceit, I know it, you know something about him that we don’t know.” 

That’s like a bucket of cold water, filled up with ice-cubes, because Remus can stay relatively calm when Roman is talking to him about him, but not when it’s about Deceit. 

That brings a cold, pale kind of rage to his heart, slowly infecting his head too. 

“Naturally, I’ve known Deceit for far longer and far better than you have. I know metric tons of stuff about Deceit that you’ll probably never know.” 

Roman’s gritted his teeth again and Remus feels himself physically bracing for the verbal punch he knows Roman’s gearing up to give him. Roman’s insults are far more vicious, more personally accurate, than Remus’ will ever be, he’s far more creative in that respect. Not that Remus will ever admit that to Roman. 

“All either of you have ever done is cause Thomas harm!” … and that’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It’s a simple one, but an effective one. A one-hit kill, if you will. It pushes Remus right over the edge. 

“No part of Thomas wants to _harm_ Thomas, Roman.” He’s getting far too real, he shouldn’t be saying this, he’s out of his depth, he’s **_drowning_** _,_ “So maybe something went wrong on his end and he’s fixing it, I don’t know, but it’s much more likely to be something that was _preventing_ y’all from feeling whatever-it-was-you-were-feeling not working than something _causing it,_ you know? Deceit is Thomas’ _Self-Preservation,_ there are reasons he does what he does, he’s not blindly malicious! … and that’s if it was a problem on his end anyway.”

Remus got far too upset when he was saying that, luckily, everyone seems to be far too preoccupied with their own turmoil and the information he provided them to say anything about it – or to say anything at all! He’s rendered them all speechless, or at the very least thoughtful.

All except Roman, who calls bullshit.

“I’m calling bulls**t,” he says, “you’re entrance was an example of that.”

Sigh.

“What else was I supposed to do?” Remus, suddenly solemn and serious, “Tell me, how else I could go about _being me, the literal embodiment of intrusive thoughts without doing that? It’s not my fault Thomas has the reactions he does, and I can’t exactly ‘duck out’”_ and here comes the oversharing bit, “Because I’ve tried that, it doesn’t work with me.”

He’s never seen Roman open his mouth only to have absolutely nothing come out before.

He takes no joy in it.

“We are what we are, Brother Dear, there’s nothing any of us can do about it.”

And that was that.

Remus sunk out.

He could morning star his way out of anything that caused, including anyone who tried to come talk to either him or Deceit. Remus knew his most favouritest snake in the whole wide world couldn’t deal with any added stress and now neither could he.

He goes straight back to Deceit, who jumped at the sound of the door opening but gives an attempt at a grin when he sees it’s just Remus getting back.

“Ssso, what did they want?”

“They noticed something was off, with themselves, they were just trying to figure out what was going on.”

“… You seem happy.”

“I’m not.”

For once, Remus doesn’t appreciate the irony.

To help refocus his mind from this… emotional bullshit, Remus decides to go back to a previous thought. He remembers that he wanted to come up with an adequate swear word to summarise his and Deceit’s current predicament, it doesn’t take long for him to settle on one. It isn’t the most creative, but it’s a classic.

_"MOTHERFUCKER!"_

**Author's Note:**

> Woooooo! This has been the most effort that I've put into any of my writing, hell, I actually beta read this thing! Multiple times!!! It's my word baby and I love it very, very much. A lot more thought and detail is going into this than my other works, so it'll both have longer chapters and be posted far more infrequently. 
> 
> Just this first chapter is around 16 pages and it is, to date, the longest chapter I've ever written, and could very easily beat out 'A Little Hollow' for length once I reach the end of the story. I can't wait :)))


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